Other forms: whooshing, whooshes
To whoosh is to move fast with a rushing sound. It whooshed past, a whoosh of air, whoosh by.
The word is the sound: air displaced by something moving quickly, which is why it suits cars, trains, rockets and doors. It is informal and slightly childlike, which is much of its charm. As an interjection it marks something happening suddenly. Note whooshing; and that English forms these sound words freely — whoosh, swish, whizz, zoom — and hardly ever borrows one.
1verbwhooshTo move fast with a rushing sound.
“The express train whooshed through the station without stopping.”
2nounsoundSuch a sound.
“With a whoosh, the gas caught and the barbecue burst into flame.”
whoosh is a rushing sound.
The word is purely imitative, first recorded in the nineteenth century. English creates these freely and they rarely have any history beyond the noise itself.
Of imitative of the sound origin.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire